Jack put me up on the table to look at the parrot. The boy held her by a
string tied around one of her legs. She was a gray parrot with a few red
feathers in her tail, and she had bright eyes, and a very knowing air.
"The boy said he had been careful to buy a young one that could not
speak, for he knew the Morris boys would not want one chattering foreign
gibberish, nor yet one that would swear. He had kept her in his bunk in
the ship, and had spent all his leisure time in teaching her to talk.
Then he looked at her anxiously, and said, "Show off now, can't ye?"
"I didn't know what he meant by all this, until afterward. I had never
heard of such a thing as birds talking. I stood on the table staring
hard at her, and she stared hard at me. I was just thinking that I would
not like to have her sharp little beak fastened in my skin, when I heard
some one say, "Beautiful Joe." The voice seemed to come from the room,
but I knew all the voices there, and this was one I had never heard
before, so I thought I must be mistaken, and it was some one in the
hall. I struggled to get away from Jack to run and see who it was.
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